DAUGHTER OF MICHIGAN: 1909-1913

If 1909 marked a change in Margaret’s hometown, it also was the beginning of change in Buffalo and Tonawanda and the world. On January 16, 1909, Ernest Schackleton located the magnetic South Pole. January 23 the first radio rescue at sea occurred. Women still did not have the right to vote. As the suffragists were taking to the streets to make their voices heard, the civil rights of another group, this time men were becoming an issue.

The African American community was trying to shift the balance of power by forming on February 12 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. While the political and racial climate was gearing up steam, the technological side of the economic coin was also gaining great momentum. On February 22, the Great White Fleet, the first U.S. Fleet to circle the globe returned to Virginia.

The month of March began with the Inauguration of a new President taking place during a huge blizzard. On March 4, 1909, President Taft took the oath of office and became the twenty-seventh President of the United States of America in a record-breaking 10-inch snowstorm. The next month Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reached the North Pole.

That summer the United States was making the headlines on a monthly basis and they always had the word “first” in them. In June the first U.S. Plane was sold commercially by Glenn Curtiss and in July, Orville Wright tested the first U.S. army plane. Three days later the Wright Brothers delivered the first military plane to the army.

The summer of 1909 ended with the first SOS used by an American ship the Arapahoe off Cape Hatteras, NC and on August 29, the first air race was held in Rheims, France and won by Glenn Curtiss. Women were making a name on an International level, even if they were not gaining a foothold in the U.S. political scene. On December 31, 1909, Madame Currie received her second Nobel Prize.

Margaret’s new extended family was also experiencing change. By the summer of 1909, Edward’s younger brother had enlisted in the Revenue Cutter Service. Alfred was sailing on the U.S.S. Morrill and like his brother hoped to become a lighthouse keeper. Charles, another younger brother wrote to Alfred about his own aspirations that summer.

In doing so there is a glimpse of what Margaret was feeling. The days when Edward was at the light were long and lonely for her. She did not wish to spend them in isolation, not when there was family near by. She often went to Tonawanda to the large house on Broad Street, spending time with her husband’s family. The days were spent reading or visiting with her sisters and brothers-in-law and her new mother-in-law. Charles and Margaret may have formed a close relationship during those lonely times when her husband was out to the lighthouse. They may have even gone to baseball ball games, Charles wrote to Alfred he was reading and then heading out to a ball game later. Margaret, he mentioned was also at the house. Years later, when Margaret and Edward lived in Marblehead, Ohio Charles and his family would often visit during the summer months.

She also had a good relationship with Alfred who wrote to her while sailing on the Morrill. Addressed to Mrs. E. M. Hermann c/o the Life Saving Station at Buffalo, Alfred’s postcard was filled with newsy information about life on the ship and the parade they had marched in making “a fine showing”. The postcard picture was the Barcelona Lighthouse. Alfred was seventeen years old. Margaret would understand because Margaret had loved his brother when he sailed with the Morrill. Alfred’s brother was his idol and he wanted to journey down that same
path. He was not about to waste his time on Great Lake cargo ships. No, he was going to sail with the military, the Revenue Cutter Service and someday he would find a beautiful young woman, smart and independent just like his sister-in-law. Perhaps Margaret’s fondness for Alfred was because he reminded her of her own now deceased brothers. Perhaps he reminded her of Edward. Whatever the reason, the postcard from Barcelona, New York State stayed with her until her death. Perhaps it was because this was the last postcard Alfred would ever write to his adored sister-in-law.

If 1906 had been a year of sorrows for Margaret’s family, then 1910 was to be the year of sorrows for Edward’s family. Margaret must have thought she was back in Hudson, because what had happened to her then could not possibly be happening again. Only this time the deaths were in her new family and the place was Tonawanda, New York. Two years into her marriage, she was called upon to give comfort and solace to not only her husband, but also her in-laws.

On April 7, 1910, Mary Wilhelmina Rosina died at the age of twenty-two. The circumstance surrounding her death remains a mystery. In fact, she remains a mystery. None of the nieces and nephews could remember an aunt named Mary. If there were pictures of her, they are non-existent now. She is perhaps an unidentified sister in a family portrait, but it is not certain. What is certain is that she slipped from life without any traces of being in this life, except for her death card. There were no postcards, no letters, nothing, except a wondering question by a great niece almost one hundred years later about her. The question would never be answered, because no one even remembered or knew she existed. Yet, for all of her life she lived in the large house on Broad Street. She was surrounded by older and younger siblings and a mother and father. There had not been a child’s death in the Herman (n) family since 1894. Years later, all that remained to tell her story of life was a handwritten notation in a wire notebook. It simply read, “Mary Wilhelmina Rosina Herman, 22, 1910-4-7”.

Exactly five months later, Margaret’s favorite nephew was dead. The family would remember this child. On September 6, 1910, Alfred Herbert Herman (n) died of a ruptured appendix. His younger sister, Clara remembered well the events that led to his death. He had been sailing on the Morrill and was home to visit. Suddenly his appendix burst. They called for the doctor. When he arrived, the dinning table was cleared and Alfred was laid upon the wood surface. The family held the lights so the doctor could see to operate. The tools for operating were laid out on the kitchen counter and the sisters acted as nurses, handing the instruments for cutting as the doctor called out for them. Alfred was in horrible pain and the sisters could hardly bear the sights and sounds. Quick as the doctor was he could not save Alfred from the infection that had already spread throughout his body. Alfred died that night on the family dinning room table with his sisters still holding the light. He was only eighteen years old.

There were no postcards to tell of the grief the family suffered in 1910. It is doubtful Margaret traveled anywhere to visit that year.

Edward’s brother Charles had written to Alfred while he was serving on the U.S.S. Morrill the summer of 1909 that he wanted to do something meaningful with his life. The inference was that his two older brothers had a meaningful life and he did not. After Alfred’s death Charles found that meaningful something. It was to enlist in the Revenue Cutter Service.

1911 was another year of technological and political firsts, although not all of them took place in this country. On January 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted the first successful hydroplane in San Diego, California. American women were still voicing their protests because they did not have the right to vote. Another country was to grant women that right long before the United States. On April 30, Portugal approved women’s suffrage. While the voices of women were coming together to push for that right in this country, the distance between the coasts of the continent was getting shorter and the faster mode of transportation would help women in their quest for voting rights. On September 17, 1911 the first transcontinental airplane flight took place from New York to Pasadena.

On December 11, 1911, a postcard arrived to Mr. and Mrs. Edward Herman (n) c/o the Buffalo Life Saving Station. It was from Charles sailing on a “fine cutter”. They had rescued five men on a boat that “stove a hole”. The picture on the postcard was a nighttime view of Marblehead Lighthouse. Several years later, the irony of the card must have seemed a funny joke to Margaret and Edward.

By 1912, Margaret had been living at the Buffalo Life Saving Station for three years. She tried to make the best of her life with Edward in Buffalo and Tonawanda. She traveled back to Hudson periodically for extended visits. There was family in New York that she connected with and visited. Distantly related to her through Lucinda and the Dutch ancestors, Margaret discovered them or knew about them already. The Manges trace their family ancestry through a family, which sailed to America on the Mayflower. This same family traces their roots through an English line to the courts of Henry VIII. The pedigree of Margaret’s family connects various lines to Jane Seymour, one of only two wives not beheaded or divorced. (For more information on the wives of Henry VIII: www.tudorhistory.org/wives/ ).

Now, Margaret seemed somewhat unhappy to be were she was at this particular point in her life. If she thought about having children, she never wrote to any of her sisters or if she did, the letters do not survive. She was thirty-three years old. Her mother had born children, herself included well into her fortieth year. She was no doubt involved with her Methodist church, but that did not remove the loneliness she felt, especially when Edward was at the light for extended periods. Sometime in the fall of 1912, Margaret left Edward to visit her distant relatives in Waterloo, New York. There is only one postcard from Edward to Margaret. From the contents, it seems that Margaret may have first gone to Hudson and that from there traveled to Waterloo, New York. The weather, Edward writes, “Is squally and blowing hard”. He has received “Mate’s card and two of yours”. He also ate up the leftover ham and apple pie. He had gotten his suppers uptown and went to the academy. “It was a fine show”. “I have been to market this morn and got myself some grapes”. Then he asks her a question. It is the type of question one expects not from a happily married couple, but when one of the pair is not content in the marriage. “When are you coming home?” The card was signed, “Edward”. This was not the same Edward who had walked across the frozen harbor to retrieve his newly wedded wife’s fur coat and had signed the card to her, “love, Ed”.

It was one year later when another postcard was written and saved. Margaret was no longer living at the Buffalo Life Saving Station in the keeper’s residence. She was living at 346 Broad Street, Tonawanda, NY with her -in-laws. This time Margaret was to receive another postcard of a lighthouse. Not a picture of a nighttime scene, it was a bright, clear day and the lighthouse was Marblehead Lighthouse, Ohio with the keeper’s residence gracing the edge of the shoreline. Edward sent it to “give you an idea of the place”. It was the first time Margaret saw her new home and Edward’s future lighthouse.